Schedule lull sees Crimewatch top Monday’s prime time telly
The past week on TV has seen viewers get used to at least one major audience-binding prime time event per night, but Monday evening brought the telly-viewing nation back down to earth with a schedule that industry experts would politely describe as a ‘quiet’ night of TV.
Between the BBC Music Awards, the Royal Variety Performance and The X Factor finale, the past week featured three prime time appearances from One Direction, so perhaps it was time for some bog standard programming to allow audiences to catch their breath before the silly season kicked off properly.
Over on BBC One, the lovely Kirsty Young was back with more horror stories on Crimewatch at 9pm, with 3.1 million decent citizens watching in the hope of catching a criminal and putting things right.
A seemingly confused, and soon to leave Kirsty muddled her way through this week’s grim tales, resulting in a 15% share and the biggest audience in its timeslot.
Instead of a reality show featuring celebrities of the fake and caustic getting eaten by insects in the Australian jungle, ITV aired the second part of Las Vegas with Trevor Mc Donald at 9pm.
The middle instalment of three continued to detail the broadcaster’s jaunt to Sin City, with last night’s slice of out-of-retirement madness seeing McDonald interview yet more ‘dangerous’ mobsters (an avid hobby of his apparently), but suffering a noticeable week on week loss of -26%.
After last week’s début episode secured 3.7 million viewers and won its timeslot, yesterday’s scenes of the Knight Bachelor interrogating a showgirl brought in 2.8 million viewers and a 13%.
Meanwhile on BBC Two, Back in Time for Christmas (9pm) was giving old Trev a run for its money, a sure sign if any that there wasn’t much on the box.
An audience of 2.7 million viewers tuned in to see a real-life family pretend to time travel via the medium of raiding the BBC props department with the help of frugal set dressers.
The first part of the time-spanning epic saw the Robshaws enjoy Christmas in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, eating a variety of suspect material along the way and resulting in a 13% share.
On Channel 4, lorry mechanic, motorcycle racer, sometimes TV presenter and all round ‘character’ Guy Martin took it upon himself to retrace his grandfather’s steps after getting sick of waiting around for Who Do You Think You Are?
Our Guy in Latvia (9pm) saw Martin untangle his grandfather’s tangled story with very little emotion but netted 1.3 million viewers and a 6% share.
Meanwhile on Channel 5, the place programming commissioners go to die, there was another chance to gawk at people less fortunate on the latest charming On Benefits: Life on the Dole (sometimes called simply Benefits or On Benefits, as if it actually matters).
[advert position=”left”]916,000 viewers tuned in to watch real people share their sad stories, resulting in a 4% share and Channel 5’s biggest hit of the day.
BBC Three’s yuff private investigator (who isn’t Stacey Dooley) was back tackling hard man issues, with the second Reggie Yates’s Extreme UK breaking down the complexities of men’s’ rights groups for the kids, netting 253,000 viewers and a 1% share.
A little earlier at 8pm, Channel 4 earned its licence fee funding by exploring How the Monarchy Can Make You Millions on Channel 4 Dispatches. 906,000 viewers watched as the highly dubious ‘royal warrant’ system was properly analyised, resulting in a 3% share.
On BBC Two, Nigella Lawson returned for an hour-long ‘stress free’ Christmas special, treating viewers to the secrets of creating chocolate buckwheat cookies (mmmmmmm) and a sweet and sour vegetable ”slaw’ (trying too hard, now).
2.6 million viewers watched as Simply Nigella crafted more seasonal favourites, with ingredients undoubtedly plucked randomly from the aisles of Waitrose, resulting in a 12% share.
At 8:30pm was Panorama: The Taliban Hunters (BBC One), an intense documentary which followed the street-level battle for control of Karachi from fundamentalists which secured a little under 2 million viewers and a 9% share.
Even earlier in the scrappy world of soap, Emmerdale bagged 6 million viewers and a 31% share at 7pm on ITV, while EastEnders brought in 6.2 million viewers and a 28% share at 8pm on BBC One.
A double dollop of Coronation Street (ITV) took the day’s top spots with the 7:30pm visit netting 7 million viewers and a 33% share while 6.3 million and a 28% share tuned in at 8:30pm.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.
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